


False Pretences

by Daxolotl



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: All those delightful painful yearning emotions and guilt, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Pining, Pre-Relationship, Secret Relationship, Y'shtola and Yda were lovers, Y'shtola is in love with Lyse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:13:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25787140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daxolotl/pseuds/Daxolotl
Summary: "Yda and I were lovers, you know," Y'shtola says it frankly, emotionlessly, like someone who still possesses the power of sight commenting on the weather.
Relationships: Lyse Hext/Y'shtola Rhul, Yda Hext/Y'shtola Rhul
Comments: 8
Kudos: 63





	False Pretences

"Yda and I were lovers, you know," Y'shtola says it frankly, emotionlessly, like someone who still possesses the power of sight commenting on the weather. With none of the fanfare or drama that a secret kept for ten years should deserve. How else can she say it, really? A tearful declaration? Nay. That has never been her strength. She speaks frankly. _Bluntly,_ many would argue.

Lyse, for her part, freezes. She'd been practising her fistfighting on a striking dummy, jabs and punches, and Y'shtola can hear the last swing of her fist fail to connect, a break in the pattern. "...What?"

"She never told you. At mine own foolish insistence, might I add. I have ever been a private person, and was reticent to share our love with the world. I felt that sharing it would be taking some of it away from me. An immature thought. She longed to share it with you - to introduce me to you as her love, not simply her friend and colleague in the Circle." Y'shtola shrugs. "I know that this is a surprise to you, but...pray, do not begrudge your sister for mine own cowardice."

There's silence for a few moments, save for Lyse's harried breaths. "...I had no idea," she says, eventually. Her voice is quiet. Thoughtful. She's always been more quiet than Yda, even when she was trying to imitate her boisterous enthusiasm. Before Y'shtola can say anything more, before she can say that it remaining secret was her intent...Lyse continues. "Gods. That...I must've made it so awful for you, when I arrived. Wearing her mask, but with no idea of... _gods._ I'm sorry."

And, as is her way, Lyse surprises her again. Y'shtola feels her resolve start to crack, feels tears prick at the corner of her eyes. "I never begrudged you your choice to take her place, nor Papalymo his part in enabling it. You grieved in your own way, and I in mine."

"A way you couldn't let anyone else see," Lyse counters. "All while I was there, pretending to be her."

"As I said. I have ever been a private person."

Lyse walks over slowly, as if Y'shtola were a scared animal, and sits alongside her. Y'shtola wonders, now, if Yda's aether would have looked the same as Lyse's. Or if it would be a different hue. "How long were you two--"

"Three years." Y'shtola tries to get a handle on her emotions, to deliver the words as crisply and bluntly as she had said the first declaration. She fails miserably. "Almost four." Her voice cracks, weak.

"Oh."

Y'shtola sighs, squeezing her eyes shut and pressing her palms against them. To block out the world, if only for a moment.

"...What made you choose to tell me now?"

The question shakes her from her self-pity. She pauses, considering the question. "...I was tired of our lies. You are a friend and trusted comrade, someone who I--" she pauses. Swallows. Buries down the words she had almost said. Raises her head again, to look more properly at Lyse. "...Someone who I have come to care for. I thought, now that all pretences have dissolved and now that you have shared yourself more fully with your fellow Scions, that...it would not be right, to withhold this knowledge of your sister from you. I wanted to tell you before now, but...well, being cut down by the crown prince of Garlemald has a way of pausing a woman's plans."

The _joke_ doesn't do much to lighten the mood. Lyse winces at her words. "...I wonder how Yda would feel, knowing that I almost got her lover killed."

The words cause a painful pang through Y'shtola's heart. _Her lover._ She has not heard anyone refer to herself and Yda in that way since Louisoix died. Her one confidante, with her so far from Matoya. "I believe...that she would have been glad."

Lyse makes an affronted noise. "Come on, if I'm not allowed to wallow in self-pity, then you're not allowed to either! You can't just tell me she'd have been glad you were hurt, that's--"

"She would have been _glad,_ dearest Lyse," Y'shtola speaks loudly, to interrupt the self-righteous tirade, "that we are _protecting each other."_

"Oh." Lyse pauses. "Well why didn't you just say that to start with?!"

Y'shtola can't help it. her emotions bubble over and she _laughs,_ loud and free. "I would have, if you had not been so keen to interrupt me and demand I not flagellate myself."

Lyse crosses her arms over her chest, making a dramatic _hmph_ noise. Y'shtola cannot be certain, but she is fairly certain Lyse is pouting. "I know you can't see it, but I'm pouting."

Ah, there we go. "Thank you for letting me know. I would have had no inkling of the fact that you were being petulant and childish if you had not told me explicitly."

The shocked noise Lyse makes is, in Y'shtola's opinion, well worth being shoved from her chair and to the ground. "You arse!"

Y'shtola laughs again. "Believe me, I have been called far worse." She makes no move to climb back to her feet. She's quite happy here for the moment, and, with some careful manipulation of magic...Lyse's own chair topples, one of its legs snapping, and the girl lands alongside Y'shtola in a pile.

Lyse makes another shocked squawk, and, after a moment, starts laughing as well. They lie there for a time, grinning and making no moves to get up (when Y'shtola tried, Lyse grabbed her by the ankle and toppled her back to the ground. Turnabout of turnabout is probably not fair play, but such is the price of spending time with a Hext. They don't like to lose.)

"I'm glad she had you," Lyse says, after a time. "And...I'm sorry for your loss. I never really said that, with me pretending to be here and all. I was so caught up in my own grief, I didn't think about what it would be like for everyone else who lost her too."

Y'shtola smiles, soft and true. "Thank you. It was an honour to have known her. Even if..." She trails off.

"Even if what?" Lyse pries. Of course she does. "You can't just start a sentence like that and leave it there, 'Shtola, come on."

"Even if..." It's the casual intimacy of the name that has her speaking. _'Shtola._ The closeness. The care. She's helpless to resist it. "Even if I can sometimes feel like I am betraying her memory. Or disrespecting her, in some way."

Lyse reaches out, taking Y'shtola's hand in her own. "Disrespecting her? You are the most incredible, most clever, brilliant, powerful woman I have ever known - and I know the Warrior of Light. How could anything you do disrespect her?"

Y'shtola's breath catches, and she finds herself yearning to close the gap between the two of them. To press their bodies together, and to kiss this girl who has stolen her heart. To kiss Yda's sister. The guilt gnaws at her stomach, holding her back. "...I feel like I am betraying her memory by moving on. I loved her. I _still_ love her. She was, and is, everything to me. So how can I be faithful to that, how can I honour her, if I grow to care for another?"

Lyse squeezes Y'shtola's hand. "She wouldn't want you to live your life alone, Shtola. I may not have known the two of you were lovers before today, but I do know Yda. I know my sister. And I know that...she would want you to live. Just like she wouldn't have wanted my life to be defined by my grief for her death." She presses herself a little closer, wrapping an arm around Y'shtola's shoulders and holding her in a loose hug. "She would have been proud of me, for growing beyond her name and having the courage to become my own woman. And she would be proud of _you,_ to have found someone else."

The words wash over Y'shtola's mind like a salve, and she finds herself nodding. The guilt still bites at her, sharp teeth in her mind like silverfish, but it's...quieter now. "...Thank you, Lyse."

"She wouldn't want us to spend our lives in her shadow." Lyse pulls away, fingers brushing over Y'shtola's ear for just a moment. "...So, who is the lucky girl?"

"Perhaps I shall tell you." Y'shtola smiles, mysterious once more. "...But not tonight."

Not tonight.


End file.
